Because they are.
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The internet. It led to the following:
- Good social change occurred very rapidly from the 1990s-2010s, causing highly motivated pushback from those who didn't like the changes
- Rising wealth inequality caused by tech billionaires increased incentives and capability for a small number of extremely wealthy people to seize control of media and political power centers
- Foreign dictator governments became more able to more easily spread pro-dictator propaganda
- Media became more decentralized, leading to some good things but also the hijacking of our psychology to spread fear and disgust for the sake of grabbing attention
I would just like to push back and say that the Internet was an open public project, and it has helped countless people across the world. Every single problematic tech that people are pointing to at the moment are closed-source commercial projects.
That is Capitalism at work.
Because we have been taking the high road. Time to play on their level. Have no shame!
Because most people are either stupid, evil, or stupid and evil.
I don't know what the solution is, I can only hope its mostly just the "extreme ignorance" type of stupidity and not evil or "willing ignorance" stupidity and after experiencing the suffering they've enabled for themselves that they put 2 and 2 together and things maybe recover partially or enough to prevent the end of human civilization as we know it.
And what makes you so much smarter and better than everyone else exactly?
What's your angle? Insecurity or propaganda? Trying to guilt trip me for having a negative evaluation of the average person?
Maybe you aren't part of the majority of people I think of as moronic, I don't know you in particular, but the question you are asking sounds like maybe you are worried that you would be. TBH, you probably aren't significantly worse than average by the mere metric of being able to read and write, depressing knowing how many functionally illiterate people there are.
Of course, go ahead and think I'm actually the stupid one if it makes you feel better, I literally don't care about that. I care about becoming smarter and more correct perhaps, not what you think of my intellect now.
It depends on perspective. If you look at the news, online on new sites or shareable news articles, it seems to rampant. If you avoid the news and look towards your community you’ll be far less likely to believe it. It’s the interconnectedness that leads this but at the same time you aren’t being educated and helping said evil. So it’s there, it’s not a populous as people think but definitely is there. Evil isn’t global, it’s the few. It’s the people outside that you interact with daily that aren’t evil.
Because good natured people don't want conflict so they avoid it.
Bad natured people actively seek conflict and engage with it whenever possible.
Evil never sleeps. Peace does.
Two answers.
Thomas Picketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century
Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
Even reading a brief summary of the main points of both books gets you to a decent explanation.
Capitalism
That's, ironically, how the white supremacists felt all these years lol
Why would they feel that way? Not enough privilege, racism, genocide, etc? I don't think that's how regular people are feeling.
Sure does feel that way 😔
Well, I'd say it's because they don't even hide it anymore. They know they can do whatever they want, and get away with it.
Enshitification is a real thing, and companies and evil people are being blatant about it, because they know they don't have to hide it because they know they can't be stopped.
It sucks. I hate it. I wish we could do something about it.
- Rampant unchecked capitalism of recent decades has created large wealth disparities akin to the earlier decades of the last century. It is no longer possible for one person in a household with a regular job to support a modest lifestyle for their family. All benefits especially medical for the whole family, being completely intertwined with the current job reduces mobility and further feeds into the wealth gap by keeping wages low. It’s easier to blame the powerless for this state of affairs than the powerful because the powerless cannot object.
- The fear of the other has been accentuated by media and misinformation. Targeted algorithms feeding most of the information that is consumed has created echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and fears. The propaganda state has never had it easier.
- The large military and police has given never before control to the state about what is allowed to be protested. Combined with the day to day struggles, it’s extremely hard to come together for what is right. The ruling class is able to maintain the fine balance between absolute misery and general dissatisfaction that it is still better to struggle through a thankless job than to say fuck it. Failures of recent large uprisings like Middle East and Hong Kong have reinforced the futility of standing up against the rulers.
- Evil has many heads and there’s always one head that you can find alignment with. It could be the deregulation of businesses, lower taxes, anti abortion, racism, but as long as there’s one thing you can align on, the general sense of powerlessness makes it easier to overlook the other heads.
- The line between evil and good has never been murkier, especially with globalization. If you focus on the betterment of your community, it would be considered good, but what if it leads to suffering of others outside the community. Is it also evil? What is community - is it the people in your neighborhood, your religion, your country, fellow business owners? The fuzzier these lines are, the harder it is to untangle them.
Because class war is being raged but most of the global north working class don't have any class consciousness. Capitalism is working on doing what it has done to the global South for decades but this time to the global North. Fascism is Imperialism turned inward. Welcome to the rest of our lives.